Book Reviews 05/2018

These and other historic figures populate this book, with some unexpected walk-ons, among them F. Scott Fitzgerald, who in 1936 described a first-rate intelligence as having “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still ...(May 1, 2018, Washington Times)

Martha Gellhorn imagined she and Hemingway could form an unbeatable team

When Martha calls in the local vet to fix some of the tomcats hanging around, Ernest accuses her of trying to emasculate him. McLain successfully turns Martha's story into a romantic quest and Martha into a romantic heroine — though not a traditional ...(May 1, 2018, Washington Post)

'Kicks' gives us a lively, engaging history of the sneaker (book review)

The humble sneaker. Chances are, you own one or more pairs, wear them weekly if not daily, and buy new ones at least every other year. Except the humble sneaker is not so humble. Nicholas Smith's “Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers” (Crown ...(May 1, 2018, OregonLive.com)

Lou Reed, Poet: A New Book Sheds Light on the Late Icon's Literary Side

Lou Reed may be punk's godfather, but he also figures in a great American poetic lineage including the Beats and the New York School – and a new book of his writing, Do Angels Need Haircuts?, offers compelling evidence. This isn't rock-crit hyperbole ...(May 1, 2018, RollingStone.com)

As a novelist, David Duchovny is no Sean Penn

(He supports himself by writing book reviews, which may be the most fantastical element of this fantasy plot.) Ignoring her own desire to write, Emer works as Con's unpaid assistant on his research about the intermingling of religious and mythological ...(May 1, 2018, Washington Post)

Book review: Left Bank

Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris 1940-1950 by Agnes Poirier is published by Bloomsbury (£25). When, at the end of five years of Nazi occupation, the Vichy French leader, Marshal Philippe Pètain came to trial, France's Jewish former ...(May 1, 2018, Jewish Chronicle)

Book Review: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie presents another insightful, and highly readable, essay by a remarkably gifted author. May 1, 2018 by Alexander Schuhr Leave a Comment. shares. Embed from Getty Images. — There is a rather large number of writers I like, but ...(May 1, 2018, The Good Men Project (blog))

Book Review: “The Director: A Memoir” by JK Stein

In today's #TimesUp and #MeToo movements, “The Director,” by J. K. Stein, proves its relevance with every page. “The Director tells the story of the author. J.K. Stein, who goes by “J”, is a graduate student in New York City. She faces a lot of ...(May 1, 2018, Utahstatesman)

The book is 336 pages and is aimed at a teen audience. Taking cue from the long literary history of stories about a person out of their society, the protagonist, Vaela, finds herself stranded on a mysterious continent during a tourist trip. She must ...(May 1, 2018, Bleeding Cool News)

By Donald Rumsfeld

Mr. Rumsfeld bases “When The Center Held” on notes he dictated to his staff following meetings with Mr. Ford, memos that serve as “a real-time, raw, running log of the Ford presidency from its inception” (transcripts of the memos appear at the start of ...(May 1, 2018, Washington Times)

Book Review: “Only Child” by Rhiannon Navin - The Daily Athenaeum

Navin does a fantastic job of portraying the emotions that Zach feels throughout the entire book, and it leaves you sobbing many times. Zach's tenacity to heal the wounds left by Andy's murder does not stop until the very last page, when he finally has ...(May 2, 2018, thedaonline)

Book review: ' Tomorrow: A Novel'

Author: Damian Dibben; c.2018; Hanover Square Press; $26.99; 335 pages. You have a little shadow. All day long, wherever you go, your dog is right beside you. He goes from bedroom to kitchen, to the garage, to the TV; if you're there, so is he. He ...(May 2, 2018, Bloomington Pantagraph)

Book Review: 'Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect Is Tearing Us Apart,' by Howard Ross

We see daily evidence that our society is forming into intractable ideological groups, segregating us from differently minded people at every turn. This unsettling form of tribalism is the focus of a new book by global diversity and inclusion expert ...(May 2, 2018, seattlepi.com (blog))

Book Review: 'Igniting Purpose-Driven Leadership' by Jim Nevada

In Igniting Purpose-Driven Leadership, Jim Nevada, executive consultant, coach, and entrepreneur, suggests that the essential element many leaders are missing and that sets apart successful leaders from the rest is a focus on purpose. In his book, he ...(May 2, 2018, seattlepi.com (blog))

Book Review: 'The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand'

... unless publishing posthumous monographs. I'm sure Dyer's book won't be the last on Winogrand. Another one will come along in, say, five years or so. But for now, it's the current gold standard. It's a big, handsome clothbound production, built to ...(May 2, 2018, PetaPixel (blog))

Can a woman find true love with a handsome fish?

This could be the governing principal of the book as well. “The Pisces” is many things: a jaunt in a fabulous voice, a culture critique of Los Angeles, an explicit tour of all kinds of sex (both really good and really bad), but possibly most of all, it ...(May 2, 2018, Washington Post)

Book Review: 'Saving Sin City' by Mary Cummings Satisfies

Local journalist Mary Cummings's retelling of a scandal that took place in early 20th century New York City is provocative and enthralling. Cummings is a historian as well as a writer and her work has been recognized by the New York Press Association ...(May 2, 2018, Dan's Papers)

Jewelweed” is Rhodes' second novel following his lengthy absence from publication. Like “Driftless” before it, “Jewelweed” is set near the fictional community of Words, Wisconsin, in the west-central Driftless region. Blake Bookchester is nearing ...(May 2, 2018, Thecountyline)

Though "Love & Luck" feels forced into the same formulaic plotline as its predecessor — a teenager healing her emotional wounds while touring Europe at the whims of a written guide — the story has a lighthearted, humorous charm that makes it hard to ...(May 2, 2018, Deseret News)

Every year at this same time, it's all the same: Politicians, tech titans, celebrities, authors and other notables stand behind podiums in every college campus in the United States and deliver the same nuggets of wisdom and inspiration. Well, Carl ...(May 2, 2018, The Denver Post)

By Lidia Bastianich

She acknowledges the sacrifice her parents made in coming to America, but never explains what prompted their risky departure from Pula. She so often reiterates how much she values family that a reader could be forgiven for thinking she protests too ...(May 3, 2018, Washington Times)

Book review: Lionel Shriver's short fiction dives into social issues

In her latest book, "Property," she explores a host of contemporary social issues, including freeloading young Americans abroad ("Kilifi Creek"), adult children who won't leave home ("Domestic Terrorism") and, in a story titled "Negative Equity," the ...(May 3, 2018, Aspen Times)

John McCain: By the Book

Senator John McCain, whose new book is “The Restless Wave,” thinks all children should read “Huckleberry Finn”: “It's funny and it's scary, and it teaches us to see past our differences.” What books are on your nightstand? “Sinatra: The Chairman,” by ...(May 3, 2018, New York Times)

What can 'Macbeth' teach us about President Trump's next move?

This is, therefore, fundamentally a book about President Trump, or at least what Greenblatt thinks Shakespeare would have made of Trump. Much of the time, the book's political purpose is masked by Greenblatt's expert and shrewd reading of plays, those ...(May 3, 2018, Washington Post)

Book Review: The Chandelier

Book Review: The Chandelier. Eric Becker / Americas Quarterly. May 02, 2018. This article is adapted from Americas Quarterly's print issue on Venezuela after Maduro. Newcomers to Brazilian author Clarice Lispector's work often find it bewildering. Her ...(May 3, 2018, AS/COA Online)

Book Review: There Are No Dead Here

Book Review: There Are No Dead Here. Adriana La Rotta / Americas Quarterly. May 02, 2018. This article is adapted from Americas Quarterly's print issue on Venezuela after Maduro. In 1993, the death of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar radically shifted the ...(May 3, 2018, AS/COA Online)

8 New Books We Recommend This Week

(Riverhead, $26.) A melting mother, a Cyclops with a dating profile and other fanciful characters inhabit Ausubel's latest collection of stories, many of which revolve around family life. “These are not normal families, not happy or sad families, but ...(May 3, 2018, New York Times)

Book Review: The Rise of Big Data Policing – Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement

No one knows how much of a high wire act it is to justly deploy this technology better than the book's author, law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson. The book's mission is to highlight the risks and set a cautionary tone – however, Ferguson avoids the ...(May 3, 2018, The Predictive Analytics Times)

If you like despair — and 'Orange Is the New Black' — you'll love 'The Mars Room'

[Review: Rachel Kushner's 'The Flamethrowers']. Romy's new comrades at the Stanville women's prison in California include Button Sanchez, who gives birth while being admitted. And there's Conan, who looks so masculine that she was once accidentally ...(May 3, 2018, Washington Post)

By Michael Ondaatje

You have to be over 70 to remember World War II, and considerably older than that to remember actual fighting or daily life in the combatant countries. But the devastations and accommodations of the war remain, in fiction no less than in other areas of ...(May 4, 2018, Washington Times)

Book Review: Solitude, independence in the American wilderness

The tradition and myth of American individualism may well have begun with a dogged frontiersman named John Colter. “Mountain Man: John Colter, the Lewis & Clark Expedition and the Call of the American West,” by David Weston Marshall. The Countryman ...(May 4, 2018, The Providence Journal)

Book Review: Parallel lives twist, turn through the years in Newport

Take five characters, set them in distinct time periods in Newport's history, and you might expect a babel of unintelligible voices. Instead Gregory Blake Smith has produced a novel of wit, intelligence and moral complexity. In short, this book earns ...(May 4, 2018, The Providence Journal)

Book review: Making the case for hopefulness

Steven Pinker beckons us to become optimists by adopting what he calls the major brainchildren of the Enlightenment — “free speech, nonviolence, cooperation, cosmopolism, human rights and acknowledgement of human fallibility.” “Enlightenment Now ...(May 4, 2018, The Providence Journal)

Notes From the Book Review Archives

This week, three reviews document the history and legacy of Broadway. In 1922, Robert Edmond Jones, a leader in American stage design, reviewed “The Theatre of Tomorrow” by Kenneth Macgowan and considered the role of theater in everyday life. Read an ...(May 4, 2018, New York Times)

Book Review: Beartown

This week's book features a sleepy town, whose main interest is in the sport of hockey. A win at the junior ice hockey championships seems like the only cure for this long forgotten town. Everything seems to be going right until a scandal sweeps the ...(May 4, 2018, WBAA)

Book Review: Earning The Rockies

This week's book highlights the unique geography of these United States. He drives from coast to coast, noting different things about each part he goes through. Kaplan notes Purdue, among other universities in the modern Midwest and their impact on the ...(May 4, 2018, WBAA)

A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs, book review: Insights from the VC world

If you get confused by terms like 'convexity', 'moat' and 'Mr Market' (which are some of the key repeated concepts), there's a glossary -- but most of the explanations are better covered in the meat of the book. 'Convexity' in financial terms is still ...(May 4, 2018, ZDNet)

Why the clash between Trump and the intelligence community is scary

Hayden opens the book with his recollection of walking around in war-torn Sarajevo in 1994 as head of intelligence for American forces in Europe. Observing the devastation caused by conflict among Serb, Croat and Muslim factions, Hayden pondered the ...(May 4, 2018, Washington Post)

John McCain: authentic before it became a political fad

Fortunately, McCain, a Republican who has represented Arizona in the Senate since 1987 (occupying Barry Goldwater's seat), has already passed into the pages of “John McCain: American Maverick,” a photo biography with text by journalist Elaine S. Povich ...(May 4, 2018, Washington Post)

Book review: The secret to living forever in Chloe Benjamin's 'The Immortalists'

How each sibling deals with the date of their death is something I'd love to discuss, but I want you to read the book and make the discovery for yourself — so no spoilers here. The question becomes, however, are they doomed to die on the date the ...(May 4, 2018, WatertownDailyTimes.com)

Fiction Picks: Review of Whistle In The Dark, Property and The Librarian

Whistle In The Dark by Emma Healey (Viking, £12.99). Her reappearance is a relief but Lana, who has a head injury and ligature marks on her ankles, resolutely refuses to say where she has been or what happened to her. The troubled 15-year-old had ...(May 4, 2018, Express.co.uk)

Ditch the quest for eternal life and just enjoy the days you have

Americans have a history of obsession with fads designed to help us live forever. But to what end? Death, notes Barbara Ehrenreich in her new book, “Natural Causes,” still awaits us all. In this lively cultural history of our attempts to control our ...(May 4, 2018, Washington Post)

Paul Simon: The musical genius who gave voice to the sound of silence

Hilburn is not an exciting writer, though Simon chose him as his biographer. Instead of feeling suspenseful, this version of Simon's life story seems inevitable, and reading the long history of his career never quite zings as it should, despite his ...(May 4, 2018, Washington Post)

There Is Nothin' Like a Tune

Subscribe: iTunes | Google Play Music. Book Review. There Is Nothin' Like a Tune. Todd S. Purdum talks about “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution,” and Fran Leadon discusses “Broadway: A History of New York City in ...(May 4, 2018, New York Times)

'Warlight' is a quiet new masterpiece from Michael Ondaatje

[Review: 'The Cat's Table,' by Michael Ondaatje]. For the first hundred pages, all is atmosphere and allusion. Nathaniel, his first love, Agnes, and later his sister, Rachel, join the Darter as he plies London's waterways at night, transporting ...(May 4, 2018, Washington Post)

Book Review: God and the Paranormal Part 1: Mediums, Ghosts, and the Afterlife.

In this well-researched and compelling book, you will learn: • What the Jews, including Jesus and the Apostles, believed happens when we die. • Both Old and New Testament verses that prove we must continue our relationship with the dead. • Jesus ...(May 5, 2018, ChicagoNow (blog))

Library activities and book review

BOOK REVIEW. “A Land More Kind Than Home,” by Wiley Cash. Publication Date: April 17, 2012. Review by Amy Tollison, Mary Wood Weldon Memorial Library. In the mid-1980's, a preacher by the name of Carson Chambliss rules the lives of the faithful of ...(May 5, 2018, Glasgow Daily Times)

Book Review: Winston Wallaby Can't Stop Bouncing

His teacher offers him sensory strategies, such as allowing him to stand to do his work, to calm his body so he can succeed in her class. The book offers kids with ADHD (hyperactive type) a character they can relate to — someone who bounces around at ...(May 5, 2018, ADDitude)

Charles Arthur, Cyber Wars [Book Review]

Book Review. Cyber Wars gives you the dramatic inside stories of some of the world's biggest cyber attacks. These are the game changing hacks that make organizations around the world tremble and leaders stop and consider just how safe they really are ...(May 5, 2018, ValueWalk)

BOOK REVIEW: My Most Wanted Marijuana Mom: David Michael McNelis

Every child has to grow up and make do with the world he or she is born into. So it was with David Michael McNelis. His mother and members of his family in the late 1970s decided to smuggle marijuana into the U.S. at a time when it was considered ...(May 5, 2018, Valdosta Daily Times)